Pain relief?

[LizSpain]

Help!!!

I'm an expat living in spain and this my 1st pregnancy, they don't offer gas & air in Spain and always cut to prevent a tear, I have a very low pain threshold so is it best for me to have an epidural?

I've heard epidurals mean you have to have a forceps delivering? What are the risks with this?
I've also heard that you can feel quite spaced out with an epidural which might prevent bonding with the baby straight away is this true?

I've read about hypno-birthing has anyone tried this?

It is, isn't it? Marvellous stuff. Such a pity it's only available at a time when one's attention is elsewhere.

I was so bombed on gas and air after my second (home) birth that I thought my newborn daughter had testicles.

Oh I agree labour hurts like fuck. Nothing else comes close. Gas and air rocks though. And it's a bloody amazing feeling when you push that bubba out

alfie - Obviously, the point I am making is that "gas" crosses the placenta into the baby. It goes into your baby's brain. "No known long term effects" is small comfort (imho).

As for pethidine: Pethidine given during labour crosses the placenta with the result that some babies are slow to start breathing after they are born. Every delivery room carries a supply of a drug that can reverse the effects of pethidine and this can be quickly injected into the baby if he is drowsy. However, the pethidine will linger in the baby?s system for up to a week and may make the baby unresponsive and difficult to feed in the early days of his life.

all pain relief has pros and cons, including epidural.

at MI's dd's testicles. When DS2 was born, I said very confidently 'he's a boy!', and the midwives said 'How did she know that before he was fully delivered?'. I didn't like to admit that what I had thought was his penis was actually the umbilical cord.

Massive labia, newborn girls. Globular.

The pro of pain relief is it relieves pain. Which is quite a strong argument really.

CoteDAzur - agree about pethidine - I wouldnt want the stuff as there's a lot of evidence about it slowing down breathing. I accept your point about gas and air, but that really only puts it in the category of most other drugs - everything carries the 'no KNOWN long term effects' thing, eben a flippin paracetamol, simply because there could conceiveably be some teeny chance that someone could in years to come have some weird reaction to it. But I have to say, as gas and air leaves the bloodstream quickly, I can't see why that would be the case. Also, it's been around long enough now that I'm sure there would be case studies on the detrimental effects if there were any. Whereas with epidurals, there IS evidence of an increased risk of an instrumental delivery on the baby and a (very small but nevertheless catastrophic) risk of long term damage to the mother.

am loving that last statement

oh bugger xpost

i meant MI's pro of pain relief, strong argument one.

i guess i smoked too much weed, because that G&A just made me feel like i'd eaten bad 'shrooms .

LOL @ motherinferior

it is, but my post was more for cote, who seemed to be indicating that gas and air was a bad choice...

if i had more DCs, i would not choose an epi and would like to thikn i could manage with gas and air if anything

LizSpain, where in Spain are you?

It's not true that they always cut you. Some hospitals use a walking epidural now and in Galicia you can have a water birth on the SS. In Almeria they have gas and air and in Jaen a very forward looking hospital. Don't believe all the horror stories, things have changed enormously in the last few years. I'm in Andalucia, and I've been obsessively finding out about more natural births since I found out I was pregnant in August (1st timer) perhaps I can give you some advice?

You can also have pethidine/diamorphine here (in Andalucia at any rate) by the way.

i figured the same as you, expat. i had agood suck on that gas, felt sick and threw the thing across the room. apparently i was quite rude about its effectiveness, or lack thereof

after 2 summers in ibiza tho, im gonna be hard to please on the drug front

DH said I told the midwife, 'This stuff is a trip. A bad one.'

i was begging for the epi upon admission, at 2cm. but, unbeknownst to anyone, dd1 was face up (she had an anterior placenta which made it hard to feel exactly how she was lying) and had that hand up by her head, so apparently this is what made it hurt even worse.

snappy - you have to toke on it REALLY hard. You then go through the sicky feeling and ...WOW. Honestly I'm tempted to have another just for the G and A

snappy - you have to toke on it REALLY hard. You then go through the sicky feeling and ...WOW. Honestly I'm tempted to have another just for the G and A

believe me, i toked for Scotland. used to smoke a pack+/day so i was sucking it in.

it just made me sick. no 'wow', just, 'this ain't drugs!'

i heart gas and air

it reminds you to breathe, which is always good in labour !

good drugs are what's good in labour.

look, i know how to take drugs of many kinds, beleive me. that shit did fark all for me, and i told em so

lol at reminds you to breathe. my mother reminded me to breathe. i told her i was in labour 'not a farking coma' . that shut her up [teehee]

my labours aint long enough for drugs.

which is a shame.

but you cant have everything i guess.

having seen women give birth without any drugs, i am in awe, and wish i had done so

but hey ho, i am not doing it again just to see if i can !